Russia ready to work with Turkey on Idlib

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Russia is ready to work with Turkey on the Idlib issue.

“We are ready to work at any level, including at the highest level. This was stated yesterday by Dmitry Peskov. So far, I have not seen concrete indications that a meeting of the presidents is being prepared,” RIA Novosti cited him as saying.

The Russian foreign minister also said that Moscow and Ankara will continue to consider ways to implement their agreements. “Moreover, not in terms of recreating the initial situation a year and a half ago, but rather in terms of achieving the results that I mentioned,” Lavrov explained.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said earlier today that Turkey’s new military operation in the Syrian province of Idlib is only a matter of time. "An operation in Idlib is imminent," Erdogan told his party's lawmakers in parliament. 

Senior Lecturer of the Department of Political Science at the Higher School of Economics of the National Research University, expert of the Russian International Affairs Council Grigory Lukyanov, speaking with the correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza earlier, said that Russia's politics in Syria will not change. 

"Russia has always proceeded from the fact that the Syrian conflict can only be solved politically. It will continue to act as a mediator between Turkey and Syria and maintain the agreements that were reached in September 2018 by the presidents of Russia and Turkey," Lukyanov said.

"In this regard, the Idlib conflict has no military solution, it must be solved politically. The mechanisms created by Russia and Turkey were called upon to launch this political dialogue between Damascus and the opposition in Idlib. If a military solution prevails, it will only create new risks for the process of political settlement," the senior lecturer at the Department of Political Science said.